


Dreamspun

by clutzycricket



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 06:18:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7606984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/pseuds/clutzycricket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhaegar Targaryen believed that the dragon must have three heads. He therefore believed he must have three children, the Conquerer and his queens reborn.</p><p>Perhaps, he would admit, he was a little bit off in this. Perhaps he should have thought of other relatives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreamspun

**Author's Note:**

> Yay, another AU.
> 
> I'm playing in this one- most importantly, we're going for an extra year or so in the timeline, because it... kind of needs to be in there? (Renly's birth, the Free Cities trip, straight through the not-Trial by Combat makes no sense, even if the characters never get a day undriven by plot.)

## One.

“I’m alive… I can tell because of the pain.” 

Rhaegar Targaryen had to laugh, if only because of Elia’s wry humor, there even when she had bled out half her life in the birthing bed. His daughter strained to focus her eyes on the new voice, only a week old and showing what he believed to be the beginnings of a curious mind.

“Your mother is awake,” he told her. “Would you like to see her?”

Elia laughed, weakly. “Oh, I worked hard enough in the making of her, I’d like to meet the fruits of my labors.”

“I meant Rhaenys,” he said.

Elia looked at him with something akin to horror. “You _cannot_ name her that.”

“Why not? She is the first head of the dragon, after all,” he said. Elia knew how important this all was.

“If that were the case, darling husband,” she said, trying to draw herself up, “you would name her _Visenya_ and while I would wince, I could bear it. But Rhaenys was the youngest, remember. And she died horribly, in Dorne.” She looked pointedly at her daughter, as dark as her mother save the blue eyes he was certain would darken only to his own indigo.

“Yes, well,” he started, embarrassed. “You know the reputation of the original Queen Visenya.”

“We could name her something else, sticking to the Targaryens of history,” she said. “Does your prophecy even tell you they must be named that? There are other groups of three in your family, after all.”

He looked at her. She knew the answer was no.

“There are other names, ones that would make sense without playing your hand or frightening your father,” Elia said, looking earnestly at him as she warmed to her theme. “Daenerys,” she mused. “After Daeron’s sister?”

“My mother wanted that name for a girl,” he said, helplessly. “I couldn’t… with my sisters’ fate.” It was the one thing that gave him a qualm about his plan, his brother Aegon, born dead.

She sighed. “And so you know my own dislike for naming my daughter after two women who died violent deaths,” she said.

“Alyssa,” he said, perhaps a bit spitefully. That woman had little luck as well.

“Daella,” she countered. “After all, your father was fond of his great-aunt, was he not?”

## Two.

Little Daella, as he had finally agreed to- he had to admit to her point, given how much she was willing to tire herself arguing it- had grown as curious as he predicted, exploring all the corridors of Dragonstone.

It was how, he thought crossly, she managed to evade the guards so thoroughly. 

“Papa,” she cried, Elia hiding her smile at his expression.

“She is your daughter,” she said.

“What is wrong?” he asked.

“I had a dream,” Daella said, indigo eyes puffy with tears. Ah, a nightmare. Perfectly understandable after those Brotherhood… fools had tried to steal Elia and their daughter. And this was her first time leaving Dragonstone since then. But her next words surprised him. “There was a black candle castle, and a sick dragon, and a very big doggie, with a blue flower collar, and then there were the bad knights again.”

“The men who tried to hurt you are all gone, my dear,” he said, clinging to what he understood from her babble. Arthur had made sure of that. 

“No, these are other bad men, in red,” Daella said, little hands on her hips like Lady Rambton, Elia’s chief lady.

He looked at her. “Have you had strange dreams before?” he asked, remembering Elia’s accusing questions, on how certain he was that his children would be the Conqueror and his wives reborn.

“Maybe,” she said.

“Rhaegar,” Elia said, warningly. 

A black candle castle was Harrenhal, and a sick dragon was most likely the King, but the rest…

“Mama and baby scream, sometimes, and I hide, and there is a bad man with red and yellow,” his daughter said. “And I’m looking for you, but you aren’t there.” She looks hurt and indignant at that.

He looks at her, consideringly. Elia wasn’t even certain if she was pregnant, yet. 

They coax her back to bed, reminding her that they need to leave the island again tomorrow. “It was a nightmare,” Elia says, trying to convince herself of that. “And,” she adds, slight and wan and terrifying in her ferocity, “that is the _only thing_ people will think.”

By people she meant the King.

## Three.

He shouldn’t have been surprised by the choices he faced at Harrenhal. 

His father was there, making it difficult to speak to the lords and knights gathered. There were lackeys everywhere, not to mention the worries of Varys and his little birds. 

Daella had no fears, following Ser Oswell as he showed her the castle, the second-newest knight of the Kingsguard proud in his white armor.

“She hasn’t said anything, has she?” Elia asked Ashara nervously. The younger girl had taken to following the young princess, laughing at her imperious energy and endless questions. 

“Nothing in particular, she mostly was curious about the dresses and the banners,” Ashara said, innocent face clear of nerves. 

“Good girl,” Elia said, straightening the girl’s dress.

When Rhaegar saw the direwolves of House Stark in grey and white, he looked at his daughter with a worried frown, remembering the young child’s terrified fears. 

He would, he decided, avoid House Stark entirely. He could not avoid all company- he had made enough plans to joust that missing that would draw the wrong kind of attention. 

Discovering the true identity of the Knight of the Laughing Tree tested him, he admitted, if only to himself, but his daughter’s dreams were true enough so far. For he had wondered, in a dizzying half a moment, if she should receive the winner’s crown for honorable deeds she could never claim credit for. (And, perhaps, for the contrast of blue winter roses against wild dark hair.)

But he could harden his heart, for if the dream was true, his fancy would kill two of the three heads, for a wild heart and sharp grey eyes.

When he accepted the crown of winter roses, he rode one place past his wife, to a tiny girl whose eyes went bright with joy and relief too old for her four years.

## Four.

He watched his son curiously, wondering at the worry and fear running through his head. Well, possibly because this boy could be his death- his father had been talking of getting rid of him, after all, and with two young heirs and a little girl of the royal line, it might even seem a wise plan to the King, with Varys whispering in his ears.

“What will you name him?” Elia asked, more curious than accusing. 

“Gaemon,” he said, looking down at the boy. “For Gaemon the Glorious.”

Elia shot him a warning look, and he said, a touch mischievously, “I already told my mother. You can’t change _this_ one.”

She sighed. “It was dangerous,” she said. “Practically daring people to wonder.”

“I once thought I was the Prince Who Was Promised,” he reminded her. “I then thought it would be my children. As it turns out, I was wrong and right with both guesses. I suppose Daella’s gifts would have been useful then.”

“Your father is impossible, and your sister is going to turn out like him,” Elia told their son, smiling. “I would enjoy it greatly if you did me the favor of taking after my personality.”

“It would serve him better,” Rhaegar agreed. But he did think this time he’d gotten it right- not Aegon, Rhaenys, and Visenya. Aenar and his children, Daenys the Dreamer and Gaemon the Glorious, that might be the story he needed.

## Five.

Princess Daella was nine-and-ten, and wed to the heir of Highgarden, when she dreamed a terrible dream.

Her husband, who had learned quickly that the clever, curious princess’ almost absent hints were not to be taken lightly, agreed when she declared she could not wait before writing a ciphered letter to her father and mother.

Because Willas Tyrell was a clever, curious man whose wife had laid a campaign worthy of generals of old to wed him, he knew to ask for light fruit and bread for a late breakfast that morning. Remembering the tales of Daeron the Drunken, who might also have been a dreamer, he forbade stronger wines to the household, claiming the princess was suffering a blinding headache.

As they were willing to love anyone who loved their heir, the household tolerated this with a minimum of gossip.

It was some weeks before they received the news of Hardholme’s destruction, and Willas Tyrell was practiced in waking her from dreams. Most times she would tell him, but others, she would write to Princess Arianne, to her brother and aunt, to her parents, or she would merely sob on his shoulder until her voice was hoarse.

It was when she told him, voice firm, that Garlan’s planned expedition to the Shield Islands was a trap, and his revised plans revealed a Ironborn manuver that would have massacred his brother’s men, he understood.

Garlan and Margaery had both heard, and Loras of course found out from Margie, so Daella watched warily as they watched her until Mother chastised them and thanked her for saving her boy.

He’d forgotten Aunt Malora, who locked herself in a tower, and the stories they told about _her_.

He’d need to take her to Oldtown, one day, if they could judge it safe.


End file.
